He’s on me, his hands meeting my flailing arms, his heft trapping me, his knees knocking mine apart, his cock there—suddenly there, threatening to push inside—and then he hunches, bringing his face close to mine. “You want my cock, Grace?”
“Yes. Yes, Liev.”
He pushes inside.
“I want you.”
26
Liev
There’snothing like bringing your woman home for the first time.
In theory.
Right now, despite just having had the best sex of my life, I’m seeing potential issues.
First of all, aside from Lamé and Zion, I’ve had no one over. I can’t imagine what she’ll think of the place.
“What are we doing out here?” she asks when we’ve settled on the front porch steps.
“I’ve probably got some explaining to do.”
“Why?” Her eyes narrow. “We just met. You don’t have to explain anything.”
Those words don’t feel good, even if they are the cold, honest truth.
“I might not owe you an explanation. But…” I twist to look over my shoulder at my closed front door. “Fuck it. Come on.”
Standing, I grab her hand and draw her inside.
I push a switch. The foyer light comes on, illuminating a world that was mostly Helen’s, now dulled by time and disuse.
Grace’s eyebrows rise as she takes it all in—the delicate antique wooden table by the front door, the wavy-glassed mirror, a series of vintage bird prints on the wall.
“Youlive here?” Grace just looks puzzled now, as if trying to work out a calculation in her head and coming up with the wrong solution every time. “This doesn’t look like you. At all.”
I don’t ask how she could possibly know that. From day one, our connection’s been inexplicably deep.
“I live here. Kind of.” It’s weird to open up and admit how mixed up I’ve been. “The house always seemed more Helen’s than mine. I’ve made progress in the past year. Got rid of a few things. Got it cleaned.” I look towards the staircase. “Still don’t sleep in our room.”
“She’s been gone how long?”
“Three years.”
She nods.
I don’t know who reaches out first, but we’re holding hands when we walk into the next room. “Living room,” I say unnecessarily.
She moves into the space with a slow respect that turns my lust into something so close to love I can’t tell them apart.
Swallowing back the need to tell her, I tighten my hold and lead her on. We go through every room in the house. There are still bits of Helen here and there, though I’ve given a lot of it away over the past year. It makes for a house that’s pretty empty in places. Like it’s been waiting.
In the master bedroom, Grace picks up a dusty picture of the two of us. We’re sitting on the river in two separate inner tubes, burned bright red and smiling like dumbasses. I love that picture. “She was beautiful.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m…I don’t know how to manage this, Liev.”
